Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), the International Financial Centre in Abu Dhabi, has announced its plans to launch a fintech digital sandbox in a bid to encourage financial innovation in the region.

The digital sandbox will help facilitate collaborations between financial institutions (FIs), FinTech innovators, and regulators to develop and test products and solutions in a digital platform environment, supported by regulatory standards developed by the Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) of ADGM.

According to the official release, the ADGM digital sandbox allows

“FIs to source and procure FinTech solutions locally and globally, run tests digitally on the platform, and adopt and orchestrate the best ones that meet their business needs.

FinTechs to offer their innovative solutions to international market players, and tap cross-border market access and opportunities to grow and scale their business.

Participants in the UAE and regional markets to connect with other international markets and vice versa.”

Importantly, the sandbox will support and enable APIs that connect legacy systems of FIs to fintechs in a cost-effective and scalable manner, with synthetic data hosted on the cloud in a secure manner. To promote industry adoption, interoperability, financial inclusion and convergence to higher standards, the FSRA will develop guidance on the standards and IT security requirements for open APIs and cloud adoption.

In addition, ADGM announced that it will partner with the ASEAN Financial Innovation Network (AFIN) to leverage on the global API Exchange (APIX) platform to bring together FIs and fintech firms between the MENA region and the Asia-Pacific region onto an online digital platform enabled by open APIs.

“The objective of the digital sandbox is to help FIs build deep digital capabilities to tap market opportunities, and promote financial inclusion through innovative technologies to better cater to the underserved population in the MENA region,” Richard Teng, CEO of ADGM’s FSRA, said. “Our partnership with AFIN will enable ADGM to drive and further accelerate the financial inclusion agenda, and expand access to financial services in Abu Dhabi, regionally and globally.”